Washington State’s Boat Fleet – 2022

In 2022, the boat fleet decreased by 7,874 vessels. Altogether 237,493 vessels are currently registered in the State, placing demands on public and private boating infrastructure including marinas, mooring buoys, state marine parks, sea locks and the State’s ecologically vulnerable waterways.

The marina industry and state marine recreation agencies and consultants need accurate, geographically specific fleet information to respond to changing vessel moorage and sanitation needs in a growing industry.

For more detailed information, see the WA Coast Economist’s Recreational Boat Fleet Dashboard which organizes fleet data by geographically-specific boat characteristics and ownership information.

Size of “Active” Fleet

Washington’s boating fleet on June 30, 2022, comprised 237,493 vessels that were currently registered (expiration date on or after June 30, 2022). Over 260,000 vessels with expired registrations were also listed in the Washington Department of Licensing Driver and Vehicle System (DRIVES) database. Of those, 226,000 had expiration dates of June 30, 2010, or later. These comprise a “latent” fleet of vessels that could, at any time, rejoin the “active” fleet should their owners decide to take up boating again. However, we do not know how many of these boats are unseaworthy, have been scrapped or have left the state with out-migrants.

Note: Selecting the last day of the current registration year to retrieve fleet data yields the most complete count of “active” vessels in the recreational boating fleet. June 30, 2022 will be used as the baseline for assessing changes in the fleet in subsequent years.

Age of Fleet

The median age of vessels in the fleet is 25 years, based on their model year, 2019 being the youngest. In other words, 50% of the fleet has a model year 1994 or older, 50% 1994 or more recent. There are large differences when hull material is considered, however. Almost 50% of wooden-hulled vessels are over 50 years old, whereas only 2.7% and 1.7% of aluminum and plastic hulls respectively.

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